by Ramy Vance
“Pessimistic much? Remind me to not invite you to any parties,” I said with a chuckle. I stared off at the rolling waves, watching the water ebb and flow on the beach as I thought about it. “You know,” I eventually said, breaking the silence that hung between us, “if this is the beginning of an end still to come, then let it. I have faith that those who survive the end will just make a new beginning of it. Just like they did when the gods left. They did it once—they’ll do it again. That’s what I’m going to choose to believe, at least.”
“Believe?”
“Yeah. That’s why we’re here, right? Because we both believe that this world is worth fighting for. And we’re not the only ones; there are others and Others who believe the same, and their belief will carry them through.”
“Ahh, belief. Well, this is another fine mess you got me into.” Jean puffed on an invisible cigar as he spoke in a mock Oliver Hardy accent.
As someone who had seen Laurel and Hardy live, his impersonation was absolutely terrible. More than terrible—it was abysmally dreadful. Hilariously so.
I burst into laughter. Not just laughter, but uncontrollable guffaws that literally had me keeling over in pangs of pain. It was good to laugh, to feel again. And as I laughed, I felt my soul stir within me. It was good to be whole again, as brief as it would be.
“Hah,” Jean said, leaping to his feet and doing a little victory dance. “I told you I’d have you in stitches before this ends and I did! I win. I win! I WIN!”
“I’m laughing at you, not with you,” I said, wiping away a tear of mirth.
“Still counts, my friend. It still counts.”
And indeed it did.
↔↔↔
BOMBS FELL, but we did not die. No living being on the island did, for before any of the humans’ weapons of destruction could strike the earth, a dome shield appeared over the island and we watched as the bombs fell on the dome and fire slid down its transparent sides and harmlessly into the sea.
“How?” I asked.
“A miracle,” a voice said behind me. “They are in short supply, but not gone. Not yet, at least.”
“Gabriel,” I said, turning to see the archangel aged to the point of death. Whatever in-between state of life and death the angel had been in, whatever magic he had left, none of that mattered, because he had used all his magic to save us. And all I could think to say as I stared at our savior was one ineffectual word: “Why?”
“The world has survived so much,” Gabriel said, his ancient body becoming more incorporeal with each word. “The opening of Pandora’s box, the departure of the gods. I suspect it will survive this, too. What it will not survive, however, is the loss of good men and women. Like you.”
Being called “good” by an archangel—the very embodiment of good—was like being slapped in the face. Repeatedly. All I wanted to do was scream at the specter, insist that he was wrong. Wrong to save us, wrong to let out the evil.
But how do you argue with the Messenger of God? You don’t. You just soak in what he has to say and have your existential crisis on your own time.
“Katrina,” he said, “I have a small request for you. Here.” He handed me the Soul Jar, but where it had once been the size of a witch’s cauldron used to boil Hansel and Gretel, now it was barely the size of a common necklace pendant. “Take this. Go to Paradise Lot and give it to my brother, Michael. He will know what to do with it. Oh, and tell him that he is wrong—this is not the end. Just an unusual beginning.”
I picked up the jar and turned to the archangel who had barely more form than the ashes of a paper lantern. Seeing that he was seconds away from oblivion, I cried out, “What about you? There must be something here that can save you.”
“You, Ms. Darling, already have.” And with that, Gabriel, archangel, Messenger of God and one of the Seven Mysteries, faded into nothing.
WHY CAN’T THIS BE THE END
T he bombs didn’t kill us, which meant that they didn’t kill the monsters held within the museum, either. One more problem to deal with. But given how exhausted I was, it was a problem we’d deal with later.
Besides, I thought, looking over at Jean, he’s around and he’s one of the good guys and he’ll help bring these guys down. I’m not alone in this … and never was.
Jean gave me an engmatic smile and I honestly don’t know if I thought that out loud. Not that I cared. I was beyond tired and it was true. He was one of the good guys, an ally and a friend.
Still, knowing how I felt would go to his head …
We went to the shore where Others were being rounded up by military personnel. The bombs might not have killed them, but they were still in a heap of trouble.
A soldier handcuffed a robed figure and Jean ran over, stopping him before he could latch on the metal braces. “You don’t want to piss off this guy,” Jean said to the soldier. “He’s the Ferryman. If you jail him, who’s going to guide your soul to the beyond?” He turned to the hooded figure and said, “Thank you. I’ll get you out and home. Promise.”
The figure nodded in thanks.
“Is that the Ferryman—as in Charon?” I said, as Jean hastily guided us to the shoreline and away from the military personnel.
“The one and same,” Jean said, waving at a military speedboat that rushed toward the beach. It was manned by the same overenthusiastic kid on the beach. He helped us onto the boat and Jean pushed us out into the water.
“You not jumping in?” I asked.
Jean shook his head. “I’m going to wait for the clean-up crew. And … well, given that the two of you died on the island, it wouldn’t be very seemly of me to ride with zombies. Yuk,” he said with a smirk. “Besides, me and the boys have some clean up to do. There are monsters on this island and we’re going to round up as many as we can.”
“Do you need help?” I asked.
Jean grabbed my hand and said, “You’ve done enough and, besides, if you stick around, you’ll be stealing my thunder. Go … go before Shouf figures out you’re alive and enlists you. Once I’m back on base, I’ll be sure to erase any knowledge of your existence.”
And before my brain could stop me, I gave Jean a hug. Pulling away, I cleared my throat and with cheeks I really hoped weren’t blushing, said, “I believe the word is ‘disavow’. That’s what governments do when they forget you.”
Jean grinned. “As you wish, Ms. Darling. Consider yourself ‘disavowed’. Now go.” Jean turned to the kid. “Drop them off away from the base and report back to Kaneda, where you’re going to hand them this.” He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to the young soldier.
Then turning to me, he said, “Release orders for your friends. Oh, and you’ll need this.” He handed me my passport. “I suggest that you all meet up at the airport and get the hell out of Dodge City. They won’t be looking for you two, not after my report, but I can’t shield you from an accidental meeting. And General Shouf does like to wander the streets of Okinawa at night.”
I looked at the papers and my passport in my hand. So I was free from indentured, military servitude. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, ma’am,” he said in an exaggerated southern drawl. “Just playing the white knight to your damsel in distress.”
“Humph. Still not funny,” I said as the young soldier kicked the engine on and sped us onto the waters.
↔
I DISOBEYED Jean’s orders to get the hell out of Dodge for one small and necessary detour.
“You’re sure she’ll want to see me?” I said to Keiko, but I stared out the car’s window into downtown Naha.
“For the third time, I am sure,” Keiko said. When we weren’t being chased by nio and shisa, she actually didn’t drive that fast. But it was still obvious from the way she navigated the streets that she was the most capable driver I’d ever been in a car with, and she knew exactly where she was going. “She sometimes talks about you.”
I stared at Keiko. “She does?”
&n
bsp; “Yes, especially when I was young. She would tell me the story of the woman who saved her as a little girl during the war.”
My eyes filled with tears. In her story, Blue referred to me as “a woman”—not a vampire, not a yokai, but what I had originally been before: just a human like her. I was silent; I didn’t know what to say. “She almost died under my care …” I began.
Keiko’s hand slid over mine as she pulled us onto a side street and into a small parking lot. When she had put the car in park, she turned to me. “But she didn’t—she lived. And because of good people like you and Kenji, my grandmother went on to become a noro.”
“Keiko, I …”
“Go see her, Katto-san, before it is too late. My grandmother never misses her afternoon nap.”
I smiled through tears and kissed Keiko on the cheek before I stepped out.
↔
STANDING at the modest apartment door, my hands trembled as I knocked.
An elderly woman opened the door, her cataract-filled eyes looking up at me before they glazed over with tears of surprise and joy. “Honto ni, anata da?”
I nodded. “Yeah, Blue. It’s me.”
I spent the afternoon with the elderly woman I had saved when she was a child so many years ago. It was the only good thing I ever did as a vampire, and seeing her apartment walls covered with pictures of her daughters, her husband, her grandchildren—pictures of her as a younger woman, travelling to Paris, Rome, the Grand Canyon, Edinburgh—pictures that documented a long, happy life filled with all the moments that mattered—I had never felt prouder.
Blue shuffled forward onto her chair and bowed, her old body crinkling, but I could see her determination; she wasn’t going to stop until she managed to honor me.
“No,” I said, bowing before kneeling at her feet. “It is I who needs to thank you. You reminded me what it was to be human, and for that, I will forever be in your debt.”
↔
AFTERWARD, Keiko drove me to the airport in silence.
Just before we arrived at departures, I said, “Bet you’re happy to have me out of your hair.”
Keiko laughed. “Yes and no. Despite everything, I see why my grandmother trusted you.”
I smiled. “I meant to tell you this before, Keiko: you’re just like her. You have the same spirit.”
As we pulled up to the curb, Keiko idled the car and bowed to me in her seat. “That is kind of you to say, Kat-sama.”
I returned the gesture. “Friends?” I asked.
She gave me a curious look.
“Are we friends? Like can I call you up sometimes and ask you how it’s going? See how things are on the island? And with Blue?”
Keiko laughed. “Yes. Friends.” She glanced through the window past me. “I think I recognize those faces.”
I turned. Deirdre and Egya stood outside departures, nervously waiting for me. They held tickets in their hands.
When I got out, Deirdre nearly lifted me off the ground when she wrapped her arms around me. “Milady,” she breathed, “you are unhurt.”
“Not first class,” Egya lamented as he hugged me afterward. “What the hell happened?”
“We have hours on the plane—I’ll tell you everything then. Now, let’s get the hell out of here.”
We walked into the airport and through customs without incident. The whole time, my soul-filled heart raced with fear that someone would stop us and that I’d be right back to where I was when this all began.
But once we were in line for security, I figured we were in the clear. After all, I literally had nothing on me except a small porcelain jar hanging around my neck. The Soul Jar was so innocuous that I doubted Others would know I held something of immense magical significance, let alone airport security.
The funny thing about fear: what you are afraid of rarely happens. What does happen is something else. Something far, far worse.
At security, I was pulled aside and into a room to be “questioned.” I expected to see General Shouf sitting there with her eyeless face staring at me, but there was no aigamuchab. There was no Other there at all. Instead, I was seated across from a middle-aged man of European origin.
The guard who had escorted me in bowed and left the room.
“What’s this about?” I asked.
The man ignored me at first, before rasping, “It seems, Katrina Darling, that you’ve found your soul and lost mine.”
(Not) The End
KAT’S ADVENTURES CONTINUE IN RUN, KAT, RUN - OUT SOON!
A BRIEF, SECONDARY EPILOGUE
The Devil has been living on this island almost since the beginning. Well, the beginning of the end. He came to Kakusareta Taiyo Shima not long after the gods left, seeking to contemplate the situation he was in.
After all, his pride had been greatly damaged by their departure, for the gods left without him. How dare they? He was the Devil, Lucifer, the Morning Star, the Adversary, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit. His actions influenced the creation of this world in more impactful ways than the gods themselves. No other creature has had the impact he has had, but despite that, they left him behind.
How dare they?
And so the Devil sits in seclusion, contemplating his new lot in life—his new, mortal lot.
Most of his thoughts are preoccupied with anger at the insult thrust upon him. If he could only face the gods, he would tell them exactly what he thinks of their little “creation” experiment. He would berate those gods for abandoning them.
Us.
That’s where his thoughts always end. At that one word: us. How could they abandon us? How could they leave us behind? How could they condemn us to the slow death of mortality?
The Devil doesn’t know what hurts more: their departure or the sad fact that he is no longer the Devil in anything other than name. Now he is an Other, just like the rest of them.
↔
The Devil is sitting in his hut when all the hubbub begins. It starts with human soldiers that insist he evacuate. The soldiers are forceful with the human priestesses and some of the Others on this island. They try to be forceful with him, but the mere sight of him gives the human soldiers pause, their tone no longer forceful, but rather that of fearful children begging forgiveness and offering any and all concessions their limited powers can grant.
It’s good to know that the sight of him still inspires fear in the humans. The Devil does not want to die, and agrees to leave the island. But he wishes to be the last to board the departing ferry. He requests, in the way that all his requests are in fact demands, that the soldiers fetch him at the last possible moment, and not a second before.
Then he returns to his hut and continues his contemplations.
In the adjacent hut resides Father Time, the batty old kook. Of all the creatures in existence, Father Time should have known the gods would leave. Hell, he probably did, not that you can get the old bastard to say anything coherent. He is a being that literally lives in all times at once and such existence drives one mad, even for a preternatural creature such as he.
Three humans arrive at Father Time’s hut, requesting his help. They speak of the rising gods. Humph, the Devil thinks, you can hardly call Quetzalcoatl, Baldr and Izanami gods. They are weak, barely-deities who died early in the world’s history. They are pathetic, inconsequential gods … who will rise to power if they are not stopped.
The Devil cannot have that, nor can he get directly involved. There are rules, and one rule is his neutrality in such matters. So the Devil does what he always does: he influences from the shadows.
He whispers in the ears of the humans, giving them thoughts they believe to be their own, but are really his. He gives them a hint that, if properly utilized, will help them stop the gods.
Will it work? At this moment it is hard to tell, for the Devil cannot see the future. But if these humans have a chance to stop these gods from rising, it will be because of his help, for a human does not understand how the celestial game is played.
↔
The Devil finds himself in a slum called Paradise Lot. Clever name. Not such a clever place, though. He has overseen torture chambers prettier than this place. Still, it is his home now, and now that the world will continue on, he must get used to it.
“The world will go on,” he muses.
It seems that his tip has indeed saved the world, for the three humans have prevailed, stopping the dead gods from rising.
It is an odd sensation, saving the world. He feels a sense of pride, but that is to be expected—he is the Devil, after all. What is strange is the adjacent sense of joy that mixes in with the pride. He feels … good for having done something good.
And that is when an undeniable thought strikes him like lightning from Michael’s sword: in this GoneGod World, the Devil does not need to be evil.
He can be something else here. Something different.
Something better.
And in being something better, he can save the world.
This thought pleases him very much.
But still, saving the world is a Herculean task, and he is but one Other. He will need help—allies—to achieve his goal.
The Devil’s lips curl in thoughtful pleasure as he considers who he will approach first. The male human, Jean—a human whose ear he also whispered in, telling him another secret that, in time, could end the world—spoke of his wife, and how she would do anything to save the world.
He also spoke of how he would do anything in his power to save his Bella. Such devotion. Such love.
And if the Devil knows anything, he knows exactly how love can be used.
Twisted.
Realigned …